About Marguerite

Promises Made, Promises Kept

Marguerite Young understands that clean water is a human right. As your EBMUD Board Director, she has consistently fought for policies that protect our environment while keeping rates affordable for working families.

A woman with long, curly gray hair and glasses smiling, wearing a blue shirt, standing outdoors in front of a wooden fence.
San Pablo Reservoir, which captures local runoff, and provides recreation and habitat.
A picture of rapids on the Mokelumne River, a wild and scenic river, where EBMUD gets 90% of it's supply.
A picture of Marguerite Young kayaking on rapids, a favorite hobby of hers.
Marguerite with her grandaugher Rhea, pictured in front of an EBMUD Truck decorated for the Orinda July 4th parade.

Her deep roots in the East Bay and her background in environmental advocacy bring a crucial perspective to managing our most precious resource.

When I was elected to EBMUD in 2014, I promised to expand water conservation and recycling, replace our aging pipelines, keep water affordable, lead on climate action, and protect the Mokelumne River.

I kept those promises.

I helped secure permanent protection of the Mokelumne — the river that supplies 90% of our drinking water — as a California Wild and Scenic River. I worked with our watershed managers and the communities bordering our watershed lands to mitigate wildfire risk here in the East Bay hills. While Board chair, we put EBMUD on a path to net-zero emissions by 2030, ten years ahead of the district's previous goal. I championed the effort that has nearly tripled the pace of annual pipeline replacement. I insisted we make our shutoff moratorium permanent and expand customer assistance, so no one loses water because they can't pay.

My focus has been on making sure EBMUD's response to climate change and inequality is real, not rhetorical.

Before EBMUD

I spent more than forty years protecting our environment and improving the lives of working people.

As California Director of Clean Water Action, I fought for safer drinking water and Bay Delta water quality, and led the work to set stronger state standards for arsenic, perchlorate, and chromium.

I co-founded the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, which planted the seeds for California's recognition of the human right to water (AB 685, 2012) and for the SAFER Act (SB 200, 2019), which funds drinking water for communities whose systems have failed.

Why this matters to me

I am a third-generation Californian, a lifelong EBMUD customer, and a UC Berkeley graduate in Natural Resource Economics. I live in Oakland, where I am a doting grandmother, a maker, an avid whitewater kayaker, and a budding mystery writer.

I am honored to be endorsed by Clean Water Action, the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters of the East Bay, the Democratic Party, and many environmental, community, and labor leaders across Ward 3 and beyond.

Please join them.

Learn more about Marguerite